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75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

The Most Important Question

Important, Not Important

You already know things are broken. You read the news, you listen to the analysis, you"ve got the outrage. What you don"t have is a plan. The Most Important Question — 6x Webby-nominated, 2x Signal Award-nominated — is a weekly conversation with one person who stopped asking "what can I do?" and went and found out. Not pundits. Not commentators. The scientists, doctors, nurses, journalists, farmers, activists, and policymakers who are doing the actual work on the frontlines of climate, public

science

All Episodes

85:01

Best of: What Really Happens When You Just Give...

The Most Important Question ·

2023/04/03

What if we just gave people money? That's today's big question and my guests are Caroline Teti and Michael Faye from GiveDirectly. This conversation from 2021, one of my all-time favorites is one of those conversations that can help you truly think out...

en

59:06

Best of: How to Stop School Shootings in the USA

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/28

We're going to keeping re-running this 2020 episode until America stops sacrificing children. --- Here we are, yet again. We first ran this episode with Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland victim, Jaime Guttenberg in 2020 - and what has changed? More g...

en

57:02

Where In The World Are All Of The Electricians?

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/27

Where the hell did all of the electricians go? That's today's big question, and my guest is leading journalist Emily Pontecorvo. Until recently, Emily was an energy, environment, and climate reporter at Grist, one of our favorite publications. She's no...

en

19:05

Essay: ESG is good business (but don't call it ESG)

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/24

This week: Fighting over ESG is stupid, risky, and bad business. Let’s move on. Plus: RSV vaccines, the E-BIKE Act, Skittles (?), deepfakes, allergies, and a new season of DRILLED What We Can Do: ⚡️ Submit your comment to keep Virginia in the very-succ...

en

80:20

The Dive Into Challenger Deep

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/20

What if you got the chance to dive to the bottom of the ocean? Would you go? And what would you find there? That's today's big question and my returning guest, one of my all-time favorites, is Dr. Dawn Wright, better known the world over as Deep Sea Da...

en

33:02

Essay: Welcome to the Unknown Unknowns

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/17

This week: What we know — and more importantly, what we don’t — about what AI is capable of, and how much change we’re capable of absorbing. Plus: the Willow Project, H-1B visas, blueberries, honeybee vaccines, climate disclosure rules, next-gen bed ne...

en

73:15

Best Of: Is The Ocean Running Out of Oxygen? Is That...

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/13

What if I told you there was less oxygen in the ocean than there used to be? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Dawn Wright, or as many in the ocean community know her "Deep Sea Dawn." Dawn Wright is an elected member of both the National...

en

55:43

⚡️Your Home Electrification Questions, Answered

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/09

This week: In response to our ongoing and delightful home electrification series with our friends at Rewiring America, we have received a hell of a lot of questions that are beyond our ability to answer. So we brought in the experts: previous pod guest...

en

13:05

Essay: A living act of resistance

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/08

This week: Can little-old-you really make a difference? Hell yes you can. Plus: cheaper insulin, cleaner camping gear, a new (lidless) coffee cup, good news on BetterHelp, and maybe even some paid leave. Here's What You Can Do: ⚡️ Help your local farme...

en

73:23

Best of: Lessons From Plants

The Most Important Question ·

2023/03/06

What can we learn from trees? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Beronda Montgomery. Beronda's a transformative writer, researcher and scholar who pursues a common theme of understanding how individuals perceive, respond to and are impact...

en

67:07

Best Of: Did A.I. Just Make My Life’s Work Obsolete?

The Most Important Question ·

2023/02/27

How many nights have you spent up recently worried that AI is just gonna take your job? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Mohammed AlQuraishi. Almost three years before chatGPT and New Bing really hit the scene, Mohammed showed up to a c...

en

16:56

Essay: How to get sh*t done

The Most Important Question ·

2023/02/24

This week: Pulled in a million directions? Wondering what the hell you do with your days? Find your north stars (and become devastatingly effective) with one simple question. What We Can Do: ⚡️ Please don’t use public wifi without a VPN. Please? If you...

en

45:01

Essay: What Do You Need?

The Most Important Question ·

2023/02/22

This week: The future of search and chatbots looks a lot like our ancient past. Why do we keep making the same tools over and over again? What We Can Do: ⚡️ Addiction is brutal. Help yourself or a loved one or someone you’ve never met with Shatterproof...

en

51:32

Clean Air Is An Inside Job

The Most Important Question ·

2023/02/20

Imagine you’re in a sci-fi movie. The one where everything’s on the line. And while dinosaurs or aliens or a virus takes over down on the ground, you’re the scientist unexpectedly riding in the helicopter with the actual president, the scientist who’s ...

en

26:30

Essay: How to Survive

The Most Important Question ·

2023/02/15

This week: There are a default group of problems that exist in our society because of the basic needs required to be a human. They are: Air Water Food Sleep These, our most primal needs, are more or less biologically inarguable, and the good news is, w...

en

17:19

Essay: "Why Do We Exist?"

The Most Important Question ·

2023/02/13

This week: For the next few weeks, I’m rewriting and sharing a selection of essays I wrote in 2020 and 2021, so about two hundred years ago. I think they’re more relevant than ever — I can’t wait to hear what you think. This week: What would you say yo...

en

68:29

Best of: How To Innovate

The Most Important Question ·

2023/01/30

How does innovation actually work? That's today's big question, and my guest is Christopher Mims. Chris is a journalist for the Wall Street Journal, and I had him on the show in 2021 to understand how he asks big questions. Chris is constantly asking q...

en

23:19

Essay: Insurance, for you and me

The Most Important Question ·

2023/01/27

This week: Everyone needs insurance. But what kind? And what does it mean to have it, or not? Well, there’s actual insurance, which is a policy where you and an insurer contract with one another in case things go south with (usually) your home, your ca...

en

72:16

Best of: How Do We Rebuild Capitalism in a World on...

The Most Important Question ·

2023/01/24

How do we reimagine capitalism in a world on fire? That's today's big question, and my guest is Rebecca Henderson, Harvard professor behind the wildly popular class "Reimagining Capitalism". I had Rebecca on the show in 2020 to discuss her book of the ...

en

45:05

Essay: You Say You Want A Revolution

The Most Important Question ·

2023/01/23

This week: What does it mean when people say “revolution”? For these purposes, which are pretty narrow and entirely of my own invention, I don’t mean some single moment in time, unless it was a bellwether for something bigger. And I don’t mean the revo...

en

602 results

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